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Comments
Seems like see quite a few people talking about how much better their car rides when they replace the OEM tires while at the same time they notice that their gas mileage falls off a bit. I guess we'll be riding on solid tires soon with the 54 mpg mandate. :P
Not sure if the mileage dropped.
I think the original tires are specified to have quieter tread patterns for the test drives and to have low rolling resistance for mileage. The resistance comes partly from the belts as well as the rubber itself.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
My '76 LeMans has a badge on the dashboard that says "RTS", for "Radial Tuned Suspension". I'd imagine that by '76 though, just about everything came with radial tires standard.
When did cars start using the metric sizing system? As in, 215/70/R15? My LeMans still has the original spare in the trunk, and it's listed as an "FR78-15" or something like that. It still holds air, but I don't think I'd trust it very far!
I cannot remember them being optional on any GM cars in the '73 or '74 model years, however.
First of all, I'm not unwilling to take corrective action - I just buy a different product. If noise problems develop later due to a problem, it is then the dealer and manufacturer's responsibility to fix it, not mine.
you seemed to be criticizing all cars for being noiser than they used to be.
In the case of some of them, that's true. But it's no different than you jumping all over people who miss their quiet cars. No way was I saying all cars are noisier today. It's just not there in the print.
I don't buy your correlation about driving and quiet. That's like saying a noisier cockpit means better aircraft performance and pilot proficiency. I also don't buy your argument that we should lay off the manufacturer if we find their product is noisier because it's safer and it is due to conservation of resources. In some cases that may be true, but in others it may just as well be due to cost cutting or trying to get an edge in buff magazine performance results. To me, that argument is flimsy and really no different than saying if I buy an appliance with a door that doesn't fit real well because of cheap materials, I should thank the manufacturer for his conservation of resources and figure out a way to shim it. As I stated before, buyers should choose the ride they find preferable. Neither one of us and our preferences are superior and frankly, I think you were out of line jumping all over Uplander and his preference for a quiet riding car like you did in your post.
Either way, I think the advantages of my A3 over a GTI were worth every penny, and then some for the premium in cost.
Regards,
OW
The Khumo replacements have 34K and still 1/3 tread life left. I'll chuck 'em in Spring '13 as over 30K on any tire is over extended, afaic.
GM uses better tires out of the box.
Regards,
OW
No more 37MPG hwy but instead 34 mpg. But the ride improvement handling and much lower noise is a huge gain on, otoh. Unbelievable how much difference they made. Traction in the rain is like glue!
Regards,
OW
I think even the Cruze Eco switches to hard-compound tires with low rolling resistance in order to get a couple more MPG. Most hybrids do also. Me, first thing I generally buy for a new car is tires. Every car I've bought that had OE tires they were either noisy had terrible wet traction or both.
Might just be an urban legend.
It was my understanding that manufacturers would specify the characteristics of the tire for their OEM -- such as tread rubber for quiet or grip, rolling resistance for mileage, etc. The Michelin Symmetry that came on my Buick leSabre 2003 may have been just that kind of tire. When I went to look at replacements, the Michelin website had 3 Symmetry tires. From what I remember, one was a Ford spec tire.
I avoided the problem of which was which because I bought the Harmony model tires.
I know that sometime people got the same tire that came on their car as their first replacements and those tires never seemed as satisfactory as the original tires were.
GM had their own specification tires back about 1977. It seems that my Olds had a radial from Goodyear that had a rib running down the middle for better quiet and grip at speed? There was a number on the side of the tire for replacement with the same GM spec tire, IIRC.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
The Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association, or VEBA, was initiated as a way to get retiree healthcare costs off the books of Detroit’s auto makers. While VEBA makes balance sheets look better, they are still an exorbitant legacy costs for the Big Three, and things are about to get a lot worse.
Reuters reports that a U.S. Department of Labor document shows that GM’s VEBA obligations were underfunded by 40 percent in 2o11, versus 26 percent in 2010. Ford didn’t fare much better, with a 37 percent deficit in 2011, up from 26 percent the previous year.
While VEBA was designed to safeguard the health benefits of 824,000 retirees if the Big Three’s fortunes go south, VEBA was forced to take payment in stock rather than cash, something the UAW was opposed to but ultimately complied with. The declining value of the shares is cited as a primary cause of the funding shortfall.
Increased health care costs are another giant disaster-in-waiting for the Big Three. As Reuters reports
“The GM VEBA trust said if the rate of health care cost increases moves up by 1 percent, its benefit obligation would increase by $6.4 billion. For the Ford trust, a 1 percent swing would increase the obligation by $3.8 billion.”
Given the rate of increases in health care costs in America, the automakers are in an extremely precarious position relative to their health care legacy costs – the very same costs that hurt them so badly in the first place, and the very same costs that were supposed to be shed post-bankruptcy.
What a wasted opportunity. Who takes crdit for this disaster?
Regards,
OW
In other words, a car equipped with a OEM brand and sized tire may or may not get anywhere near the same mileage as one a single size larger, same brand and model tire.
It is true?
I can't say for sure. But my personal experience mirrors the supposition. For example...My daughters both ran/run the same model Continentals on their Nissans... 1 Altima and 1 Versa. Neither is a "spirited driver". The Versa tires were all but bald at 30K miles, but the Altima has well over 50K miles with 1/2 the tread left. I service both cars and rotate the tires every 5K oil change.
I replaced the Versa tires with Generals, which now have over 40K on them and lots of tread left.
Unfortunately, he passed away several years ago...
What I have seen pretty much gets demonstrated in the Tirerack.com reviews, where its not unusual to see same tire/different size reviews where one guy gets great mileage and another guy (different size tire) gets only a fraction of the same mileage.
Like I said, I can't swear to the accuracy of the claim, but there's sure no shortage of circumstantial evidence to support it...
I guess, in the end, when reading tire reviews, make sure the tire review you're reading is for the exact tire you are considering, make, model AND size...
"GM used/uses good tires out of the factory."
They may now but wasnt my experience with my truck. It came with el cheapo tires, when it rained forget about traction. And yes it is a truck, I know its front heavy and in fact was driving very carefully, those tires were awful.
A new set of Michelins made a huge difference.
Regards,
OW
OTOH, my Acura TL came with Michelin Pilot MXM4s, which lasted >70K and were excellent. I was surprised that to replace them would be >$1K for my car. So they were very good OEM tires.
They just need to make great cars and stop whining about market conditions, gov't interventions into reducing multimillion dollar bonuses, and consumer reports not liking their vehicles.
I called our friend Woody Rogers at Tire Rack to investigate. The first thing to realize: The tires on the GT500 are P-metric and the ZL1’s are Euro-metric. This means the tires are dimensionally similar, but each is made to a different set of design constraints. Rogers reported that the construction of both tires appears to be the same, but that the GT500’s rear tire is 2.05 lb. lighter than the ZL1’s front tire, and has a lighter load rating. What’s more, while the Camaro’s tires are marked as ZL1-specific, nothing on the GT500 designates its rubber as unique to Ford. However, SVT says it worked with Goodyear to improve braking power in front and side bite in the rear.'
http://www.roadandtrack.com/tests/comparison/2013-ford-mustang-shelby-gt500-vs.-- 2012-chevrolet-camaro-zl1/2012_chevrolet_camaro_zl1_page_2
There are sometimes fairly subtle differences between
same make, model & size tires.
- Ray
Ran into this sort of thing on one GM, a few years back...
Hosts, quick, dub's password has been hacked!
I just replace the OEMs on the Sienna after 56k miles. Happily avoided the run-flats which last 1/3rd as long and cost twice as much to replace!
On the subject of tires, the oddest choice I've observed lately is the Prius tires on the FR-S/BRZ. Either they want to facilitate drifting, or they just figure everyone will replace them anyway.
In contrast, my 2000 Intrepid came with Eagle GAs that had a 300 treadwear rating, and they were pretty much racing slicks by around 30,000 miles.
I've worn through sets in 18k miles before.
They call it the BMW 3's long lost twin.
But I thought CR was horribly biased and anti-GM? :P
The people that think that also think 9/11 was staged and Obama was born in Kenya.
Didn't have anything to do with reality, right? GM, Ford and Chrysler were far and above better than the imports for the last thirty years, right? They all lost market share because of those rags!
Full bailout-speed ahead, Captain!
Regards,
OW
Lol!
How could a company that large not assemble the parts correctly? Extreme failure here. Perhaps even worse than the sludge and electronics runaway problems of toyota. How many vehicles may not have been identified as problematic but are in danger because of loose bolts?
I wonder what the suits have been doing at Nissan for all these years? And the engineers must be crazy: they shouldn't have had a failure on the line assembly. They should have known this would happen. It's all the bean counters faults. Terrible mistake.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
What does that have to do with CR's past record? Let's run on CR's past record rather than trying to make the campaign about little points and mockery.
CR has been injecting their own anti-US manufacturer biases into almost all of their reviews, historically. I recall their 4-5 car comparisons. Read those closely and you'll find word choices that show their bias. CR still suffers the Nader problem and suffers their collegiate journalism school ideals that it's okay to insert bias as long as you have a lofty goal like saving the world of auto buyers from GM (C and F) vehicles. :P
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
I completely agree. I remember a review of an Impala years ago that was criticized for having 18MPG combined mileage, but had not one negative comment about the mileage of other import cars with the same exact mileage.
CR is not alone. I notice the bias in all of the car enthusiast magazines and it is rampant at Edmunds....specifically Inside Line.
One glaring example: In the "cons" for the 2012 Buick Verano it mentions it is
"underpowered compared to competitor" and in the review it mentions the 9 sec. 0-60 as "Slow for this class"
Yet in the review for the Acura ILX that same 9 sec. 0-60 time is "average for a compact economy car" and is not mentioned at all in the "cons" paragraph
"underpowered compared to competitor" and in the review it mentions the 9 sec. 0-60 as "Slow for this class"
Yet in the review for the Acura ILX that same 9 sec. 0-60 time is "average for a compact economy car" and is not mentioned at all in the "cons" paragraph
If you read into it enough, that could be taken as sort of an underhanded compliment to the Verano. The Verano is supposed to be something of a premium car, so when I hear "slow for this class", I hear that it's slow for a premium car.
But then by saying the Acura ILX is "average for a compact economy car", it sounds like CR does NOT classify it as a premium car, but rather something that belongs in with Civics, Corollas, and the like.
At least, that's one way of looking at it. :P
Once, CR did a review of an Impala and it was so awesome that in the cons paragraph it read simply "None significant enough to mention". Unfortunately, that was 1977...
That's surprising. One of the reason's I treat CR as scripture is because of their thorough "CONS" sections. They seem far more negative and willing to insult vehicles a lot more than other publications. I don't think it is a problem with CR being negative (or having bias against bad domestic iron), but a problem with other publications being OVER THE TOP way too positive and lenient with their cons.
When I think of CR, I think of different ratings for Prizm and Corolla, identical vehicles made in the same factory.
As for the Prizm vs Corolla debate, who knows. Maybe there are different demographics between those customers and they have different expectations from the car or possibly don't treat it the same. Either the data collected was actually different or CU cooked the results.
I know personally I notice problems with vehicles that many other don't or at least don't care about, so I know I likely would rate a particular vehicle different than most others.
Did that really happen, or is it just a story you "heard" from probably some GM fanboy? Did you actually see the review numbers first hand? A link would be awesome.
The Prizm and Corolla were indeed virtually identical. I give a pass for different reviews if the cars that are almost identical are made in different factories, and/or different countries (unlike some hosts here :P ).
Maybe it's because I look at domestic cars through my Neon experience colored glasses. I think that kind of bias is fair, since you have a certain amount of patience for problems from vehicles from a certain country. My patience is all used up and emptied out for vehicles from the USA and Mexico (thanks to that Neon). I have plenty of patience left for Japanese and German made vehicles.
So when I see a Chrysler 300 with LED lights that don't all work going down the road, I immediately criticize and take note and say something like "See, Chrysler's are still all crap, never seen an Audi with dead LED lights" to myself.
It's a matter of not having ANY patience for domestic car issues left.
If I were to buy domestic again, I would ream the dealership so hard at the first sign of trouble, I'm just better off avoiding that situation in my lifetime.